This invention relates to high resolution fiber-optic (FO) beam control modules for gain controls using active mixed-mode SMP macropixel device concept in a parallel, serial, and serial-parallel device placement optical module structure. The basic SMP macro-pixel device is operated in a mixed digital-analog mode combined with a serial and/or parallel placement of other such mixed-mode devices between two fiber collimator lens-fiber ports to form a basic high resolution fiber-optic variable gain control module. Extensions to 1xc3x97N switch modules with on demand variable gain controls are achievable with a mixed-mode SMP macropixel device using a dead pixel concept. Applications for such modules include gain, switch, and tap control elements in wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical communications, distributed sensor networks, lasers, transmitter modules, receivers, optical switches, crossconnects, WDM programmable add-drop modules, optical amplifier units, gain equalizers, polarization dependent loss (PDL) compensators, polarization mode dispersion (PMD) compensators, various FO monitoring and test equipment, and general photonic signal processing systems.
Optical communication used to provide explosive bandwidth increases using WDM technology. Data rates are expected to increase from 10 Giga bits per second (Gbps) to 40 Gbps and higher per wavelength channel. Plus, wavelengths are expected to increase from 80 wavelengths to 512 wavelength. These straining demands on the optical networks implies stringent accuracy and performance requirements for optical components supporting the network. A critical element of the optical network is the variable optical attenuator (VOA). With increasing bits rates, optical power levels, wavelength channels, spatial channels or routing fibers, the performance requirements for the fiber-optic VOA are driven to demanding numbers. For instance, the next generation VOA will require 60 dB dynamic range, 16-bits of controls, 0.01 dB resolution through full dynamic range, fault-tolerance, ease of controls, low ( less than 1 dB) loss, and moderately fast (in milliseconds) attenuation setting speeds. Today, it is extremely difficult to simultaneously deliver the high dynamic range with high resolution. The present application shows how VOA can provide both the high resolution and high dynamic range using the concept of the mixed-mode SMP macro-pixel-based VOA.
Prior art VOAs employ the interaction of a single fiber-optic beam with a single beam attenuating (reflective, absorptive, deflective, transmissive) element. In other words, any fiber beam globally interacts with one electrically controlled optical beamforming element such as the spatial pixel in two dimensional space or on-axis waveguide element (e.g., thermo-optic element on a section of a silica waveguide). For example, a single predesigned micromirror or polarization altering liquid crystal pixel is optically illuminated by the single beam emanating from an optical fiber. Hence, the entire spatial beam is simultaneously effected by the one optical attenuating response (varying transmittance or reflection) on the pixel. Thus light coupled into the output fiber undergoes an attenuation. If this pixel fails, the VOA completely stops working. This prior art is an example of centralized single-point optical beam processing that is prone to catastrophic component failure. This single pixel (or single point) fiber-optic processing method has been vigorously used to make both optical switching and attenuation FO components, such as using liquid crystals and MEMS based micromirrors. Example of prior art using polarization includes: K. Y. Wu, xe2x80x9cFault tolerant optical routing switch,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,724,165, 1998; J. S. Patel and Y. Silberberg, xe2x80x9cFrequency selective optical switch employing a frequency dispersive element, polarization dispersive element, and polarization modulating elements,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,414,540, May 9; J. S. Patel and Y. Silberberg, xe2x80x9cOptical switch employing first and second ferroelectric cells with alignment layers having alignment directions offset by 45 degrees,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,414,541, May 9, 1995; K.-Y. Wu and J.-Y. Liu, xe2x80x9c1xc3x97N digitally programmable optical routing switch,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,946,116, Aug. 31, 1999; E. G. Hanson, xe2x80x9cPolarization-independent liquid-crystal optical attenuator for fiber-optical applications,xe2x80x9d Applied Optics, 21, 1342(1982) and E. G. Hanson, xe2x80x9cOptical switch attenuator,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 4,410,238, Oct. 18, 1983; J. J. Pan, xe2x80x9cPolarization independent optical switch/attenuator,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,276,747, Jan. 4, 1994 and J. J. Pan, M. Shih, xe2x80x9cOptical attenuator with low polarization mode dispersion,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,727,109, Mar. 10, 1998, K-Y Wu, J-Y Liu, Y-C Chen, xe2x80x9cOptical attenuation using polarization modulation and a feedback controller,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,963,291, Oct. 5, 1999; J. L. Wentz, xe2x80x9cPolarization independent light modulation means using birefringent crystals,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 3,719,414, Mar. 6, 1973.
Example of prior art using optical MEMS includes: G. A. Magel and T. G. McDonald, xe2x80x9cOptical switch using spatial light modulators,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,155,778, Oct. 13, 1992; G. A. Magel, xe2x80x9cFiber optic switch with spatial light modulator device,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,199,088, Mar. 30, 1993; J. J. Pan, xe2x80x9c1xc3x97N Electromechanical optical switch,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,359,683, Oct. 25, 1994; J. E. Ford, xe2x80x9cFiber optic switching device and method using free space scanning,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,621,829, Apr. 15, 1997; V. A. Aksyuk, D. J. Bishop, J. E. Ford, and J. A. Walker, xe2x80x9cFreespace optical bypass-exchange switch,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,943,454, Aug. 24, 1999; V. A. Aksyuk, D. J. Bishop, and C. Randy, xe2x80x9cMicro-machined optical switch with tapered ends,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 6,108,466, Aug. 22, 2000.; J. E. Ford and D. J. DiGiovanni, xe2x80x9c1xc3x97N Fiber bundle scanning switch,xe2x80x9d IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, Vol. 10, No. 7, pp. 967-969, July 1998; V. Aksyuk, B. Barder, C. R. Giles, R. Ruel, L. Stulz, and D. Bishop, xe2x80x9cLow insertion loss packaged and fibre connectorised MEMS reflective optical switch,xe2x80x9d Electronics Letters, Vol. 34, No. 14, pp. 1413-1414, July 1998; S. S. Lee, E. Motamedi, and M. C. Wu, xe2x80x9cSurface-micromachined free-space fiber optic switches with integrated microactuators for optical fiber communication systems,xe2x80x9d Transducers ""97, pp. 85-87, Chicago, Ill., June 1997; S. S. Lee, L. Y. Lin, and M. C. Wu, xe2x80x9cSurface-micromachined free-space fibre-optic switches,xe2x80x9d Electronics Letters, Vol. 31, No. 17, pp. 1481-1482, August 1995; J. E. Ford and J. A. Walker, xe2x80x9cDynamic spectral power equalization using micro-opto-mechanics,xe2x80x9d IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, Vol. 10, No. 10, pp. 1440-1442, October, 1998, V. Askyuk, B. Barber, C. R. Giles, R. Ruel, L. Stulz, and D. Bishop, xe2x80x9cLow insertion loss packaged and fibre connectorized MEMS reflective optical switch,xe2x80x9d IEE Electronics Lett., Vol. 34, No. 14, pp. 1413-1414, Jul. 9, 1998, and B. Barber, C. R. Giles, V. Askyuk, R. Ruel, L. Stulz, and D. Bishop, xe2x80x9cA fiber connectorized MEMS variable optical attenuator,xe2x80x9d IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., Vol. 10, No. 9, pp. 1262-1264, September 1998; V. A. Aksyuk, D. J. Bishop, P. L. Gammel, C. R. Giles, xe2x80x9cArticle comprising a light actuated micromechanical photonic switch,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 6,075,239, Jun. 13, 2000; E. E. Bergmann, D. J. Bishop, xe2x80x9cMoving mirror switch,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 6,031,946, Feb. 29, 2000; P. Colbourne, J. Obhl, N. Teltelbaum, xe2x80x9cVariable optical attenuator,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,915,063, Jun. 22, 1999; J. E. Ford, K. W. Goossen, xe2x80x9cLevel setting optical attenuator,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,900,983, May 4, 1999; C. M. Garrett, C Fan, D. Cugalj, D. Gransden, xe2x80x9cVoltage controlled attenuator,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,745,634, Apr. 28, 1998; J. E. Ford, D. A. B. Miller, M. C. Nuss, J. A. Walker, xe2x80x9cAttenuation device for wavelength multiplexed optical fiber communications,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,745,271, Apr. 28, 1998; R. Wood, V. Dhuler, E. Hill, xe2x80x9cA MEMS variable optical attenuator,xe2x80x9d 2000 IEEE/LEOS International Conf. on Optical MEMS, pp.121-122, Kauai, Hi., Aug. 21-24, 2000; K. W. Goossen, J. A. Walker, D. T. Neilson, J. E. Ford, W. H. Knox, xe2x80x9cMicromechanical gain slope compensator for spectrally linear optical power equalization,xe2x80x9d IEEE Photonic Technology Letters, Vol.12, No.7, pp.831-833, July 2000; F. Chollet, M. de Labachelerie, H. Fujita, xe2x80x9cCompact evanescent optical switch and attenuator with electromechanical actuation, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, Vol.5, No.1, January/February, 1999; F. Chollet, M. de Labachelerie, H. Fujita, xe2x80x9cElectromechanically actuated evanescent optical switch and polarization independent attenuatorxe2x80x9d, Proc. IEEE MEMS Conf., pp.476-481, 1998.
Earlier, space has been exploited for free-space based optical computing systems such as in works of J. L. de Bougrenet de le Tocnaye and J. R. Brocklehurst, xe2x80x9cParallel access read/write memory using an optically addressed ferroelectric spatial light modulator,xe2x80x9d Applied Optics, Vol.30, No.2, p.179, Jan. 10, 1991; W. Hartmann, xe2x80x9cFerroelectric liquid crystal video display,xe2x80x9d Proc. Soc. Information Display, Vol.30, pp.99-103, 1989; M. Kimura, et.al., xe2x80x9cElectrically and optically controlled gray scale in SSFLCDs,xe2x80x9d Proc. Soc. Information Display, Vol.31, pp.139-143, 1990.
More recently, for single-mode fiber optics, N. A. Riza has introduced the concept of spatially distributed fiber-optic beam processing using actively controlled pixels called a macropixel. For instance, N. A. Riza suggests active macropixel implementations using MEMS technology based micromirrors and polarization rotators using liquid crystals that interconnect with single mode fiber lenses to realize powerful actively controlled fiber-optic modules and processors. See, for example, applicant""s copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/397,822 entitled, xe2x80x9cFault-tolerant fiber-optical beam control modules,xe2x80x9d filed Sep. 17, 1999, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference; N. A. Riza and S. Sumriddetchkajorn, xe2x80x9cDigitally controlled fault-tolerant multiwavelength programmable fiber-optic attenuator using a two dimensional digital micromirror device,xe2x80x9d Optics Letters, Vol. 24, No. 5, pp. 282-284, Mar. 1, 1999; N. A. Riza and S. Sumriddetchkajorn, xe2x80x9cSmall tilt micromirror device-based multiwavelength three-dimensional 2xc3x972 fiber-optic switch structures,xe2x80x9d Optical Engineering, Vol.39, No.2, pp.379-386, Febuary, 2000; and N. A. Riza and S. Sumriddetchkajorn, xe2x80x9cFault-tolerant dense multiwavelength add-drop filter with a two-dimensional digital micromirror device,xe2x80x9d Applied Optics, Vol. 37, No. 27, pp. 6355-6361, Sep. 20, 1998. In each of these cited references, each SMP macropixel in a beam controlling device operates in either a digital mode or an analog mode.
Serial cascading of independently controllable VOA elements to add VOA control resolution and dynamic performance has also been proposed earlier such as by N. A. Riza in N. A. Riza, xe2x80x9cAdvances in three dimensional reversible photonic modules for phased array control,xe2x80x9d SPIE Conference Proceedings on Photonics and Radio Frequency, Vol.2844, pp.274-283, Aug. 7-8, 1996.
The present invention is the first time a mixed-mode SMP macro-pixel, i.e., a macropixel simultaneously using some digital pixels and some analog pixels within a macropixel are combined with a serial-parallel SMP macropixel device placement architecture sandwiched between two single mode fiber collimator lenses/fibers to form a high resolution and high dynamic range VOA. The one embodiment of the VOA uses a MEMS micromirror-based macropixel, pixels are designed to have their own location, size, shape, and electrical drive format that in turn controls the VOA attenuation dynamic range and resolution. Some pixels in the SMP macropixel have digital tilt states while some pixels work in analog drive mode with various states in a continuous mirror positional setting. This mixed mode SMP MEMS micromirror device is combined with a fiber lens with at least two fibers to form a reflective design VOA. This VOA design can accomplish precision and high dynamic range attenuation-based fiber-optic signal processing. These VOAs can be designed with other macropixel technologies such as polarization rotating liquid crystals, diffraction-based polymer dispersed liquid crystals, holograms in electrically controlled crystals, acousto-optic materials, bubble-based devices, magneto-optic devices, and quantum well devices used for absorption or polarization rotation.